This is Okaloosa School’s plan to move forward in the era of school vouchers.
Superintendent Marcus Chambers opened his talk to the Niceville-Valparaiso Chamber with a joke about the Noles’ tough performance against the SMU Mustangs on Labor Day. He’s optimistic about the rest of the year for Mike Norvell’s team. “One and one,” Chambers said about the Garnet and Gold, “and I’m making the prediction here this morning that Florida State’s going to run the table and be national champions.”
But much like Chambers’ hopes for the ‘Noles, the presentation for the district’s future he presented to business leaders is optimistic. The district has seen increased competition from private, home, and virtual schooling. A Pandora’s box of options created by advancements in the school choice movement and the voucher program established and expanded by the state in the last decade.
The district’s response, Chambers explained, was to continue a positive testing trajectory, ‘reimagine’ elementary education in the district, and shift to meet population changes in the county.
Testing – and a higher bar for results in Florida
Chambers opened by underscoring the high-stakes nature of public education in Florida, where school districts are graded annually, and standards continue to rise. He noted that Okaloosa has remained an A-rated school district every year but one since the state started its standardized testing regime almost three decades ago.
In the last three years, the district’s overall performance score has continued to climb. But, Chambers warned, the state continues to move the bar up for what constitutes an ‘A’ district.
Chambers credited teachers, staff, principals, and students for the steady improvement and pointed out that nearly 90% of Okaloosa schools now earn A or B ratings. Of the 38 schools in the district,t all four that did not receive an A or a B (Longwood Elementary, Choctawhatchee High School, Mary Esther Elementary, and Shalimar Elementary) were located in the southern portion of the county. Chambers made the decision, with school board support, to close Mary Esther and Longwood Elementary earlier this year.
Graduation rate among traditional high schools (so, excluding charter, online and schools affiliated with juvenile justice programs) rose to almost 97 percent.
Enrollment, Choice, and “Reimagining” Elementary
Chambers acknowledged a decline in student enrollment, a trend he said is playing out across Florida, where families increasingly turn to state-funded scholarships and school choice options.
Approximately 5,000 students in Okaloosa now use Family Empowerment Scholarships, which allow families to take roughly $9,000 per student to private schools or homeschooling. Of those, an estimated 3,500 never attended Okaloosa public schools, meaning about 1,500 left the district at some point.
Rather than fighting the state’s policy, Chambers said the district is focusing on what it can control. The greatest losses have been in elementary grades, especially kindergarten, prompting an initiative to “reimagine” kindergarten.
Chambers said the district is shifting away from an exclusively assessment-driven approach for its youngest students and adding more “purposeful play,” extra recess, and learning stations—such as mock cash registers—to build both academic and social skills. At the same time, Okaloosa is expanding gifted and talented offerings and rolling out an accelerated math pipeline designed to move eligible students into geometry by eighth grade.
To make elementary schools more attractive and well-rounded, Chambers said the district has ensured that every elementary campus now has access to both art and music, filling gaps where those programs hadn’t previously existed. Physical education is also being beefed up, including the return of the Presidential Youth Fitness Award and expanded clubs and activities like flag football.
Career and Technical Education and Workforce Alignment
Chambers devoted a significant portion of his remarks to career and technical education (CTE), an area he said state leaders, including the governor and education commissioner, prioritize. Okaloosa now offers 22 CTE programs, ranging from nursing and welding to agriculture, construction trades, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
Many of these programs, he noted, are designed in partnership with local industry—builders called for stronger construction trades, while companies such as Eglin-related contractors, Boeing, and others helped drive the push into AI, machine learning, and cybersecurity.
The district’s goal, Chambers said, is for students to be ready for college, the military, or direct entry into the local workforce when they cross the graduation stage in May. An increasing share of graduates with industry certifications, he added, are going straight into jobs.
$718 Million Budget and the Power of a Half-Cent Sales Tax
With a budget of roughly $718 million and thousands of employees, the Okaloosa County School District is the county’s second-largest employer, making it a major participant in the local economy. Chambers stressed that military leaders, real estate agents, and businesses routinely consider school quality when deciding where to invest or relocate.
He credited the half-cent local option sales tax, approved by voters, with transforming the district’s ability to maintain and modernize its facilities. Before the tax, the district’s capital budget was about $29 million, leaving only $5.7–6 million per year for actual infrastructure improvements across all campuses—barely enough to cover a single major roof replacement.
Since the half-cent went into effect, Chambers said the district has received about $180 million in additional revenue, roughly $60 million more than originally projected, thanks largely to a strong local economy and tourism traffic. Combined with rising property values—which have boosted capital funding without a millage rate increase—the district now has about $44 million annually to devote to capital projects.
Those funds have supported a long list of improvements, including:
- New and renovated cafeterias and “cafetoriums” (combined cafeteria/auditorium spaces), such as at Plew Elementary
- Multi-purpose buildings and band facilities, including at Niceville High School
- Roof replacements, HVAC upgrades, parking lot improvements, and long-needed restroom renovations across the district
New Schools and Managing Growth
To respond to uneven growth patterns—rapid expansion north of the Shoal River around Crestview and stagnation or slower growth in the south—Okaloosa has been opening and reconfiguring schools.
Recent projects include:
- Pineview, a new K–8 school in Crestview, designed to relieve overcrowding at seven elementary schools and two middle schools. Chambers said Pineview currently serves about 930 students, with capacity to grow to about 1,200. It may even have a 9th grade academy on the campus at some point.
- A significant expansion at Destin Elementary, adding a new 3–5 center and bringing fifth grade back to the campus. That move is freeing up space at Destin Middle School to accommodate future enrollment growth.
- Okaloosa Technical College (referenced as a new technical option in the north end) and other north-county expansions aimed at boosting local job training and economic opportunity.
Chambers addressed community questions about high school capacity, particularly at Crestview High School and Niceville High School. While both schools carry enrollments over 2,000 students on paper, he noted that daily attendance is lower due to dual enrollment, online courses, and flexible scheduling. Those realities reduce the number of students on campus at any one time.
Still, the district has land set aside at Crestview High to build a ninth-grade center when needed and is actively considering what future capacity solutions might look like for both Crestview and Niceville.
